


Agenda Item #27

by wedgetail



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Angst, Family Drama, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Missing Scene, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29778009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wedgetail/pseuds/wedgetail
Summary: He remembered the black bands. The only token of mourning the emperor had deigned to wear for his fourth wife -- like smears of ink across the whiteness of his person. He remembered his bitter mouth and his smooth, silken voiceThe infamous meeting between Maia and Varenechibel IV when Maia was at court for his mother's funeral. Varenechibel has some issues to work through.[the scene was originally scribbled out as background for the Nuisance Though Thou Art fanfic]
Relationships: Maia Drazhar & Varenechibel IV
Comments: 13
Kudos: 31





	Agenda Item #27

“Archduke Maia Drazhar and Osmerrem Aro Danivaran, serenity,” Avru, his soldier nohecharis, announces.

The captain is young, having pledged his oaths as nohecharis only a year ago. He is competent and quick to pick up the nuances of a situation, but Varenechibel misses Avrus’s predecessor nonetheless. His predecessor would have never sounded so cheery while uttering the name _Maia Drazhar_.

He would chide Avru later, Varenechibel decides, when his secretaries’ lists of matters to attend to no longer stretches out to five pages. State funerals are always a fiasco and cause at least a week’s worth of disruption. Varenechibel is been sorely tempted to cancel it entirely. He is certain Chenelo would not feel honoured by the insincere pomposity of the elvish court. Besides, she was dead now and incapable of offering her opinion on any subject. But much would be said if the funeral does not go ahead and the Great Avar, who has been intransigent lately as is, would act gravely offended and this is not the time for war with Barizhan.

Thus, come sundown, the Untheileneise Court would hold the funeral — the dreariest affair Varenechibel would attend this year. But before that, he has two days’ worth of meetings to fit into an afternoon. The Corazhas had his attention over lunch, the public demands him in the Antheilean later this afternoon. Squashed between the two are half a dozen lower profile, but no less important audiences. There is no time even to return to the comfort of the upper Alcethmeret; Varenechibel is working out of a reception room off the Verventheilean — a space intended for the Corazhas Witnesses’ use, not the emperor’s.

Of all the matters demanding his attention today, this one — concerning his youngest son and what is now be done with him — is the most headache-inducing. This is not the right time. And this shoddy room is not the place. Varenechibel knows this, as do his secretaries and his nohecharis, but it is this or summoning the boy up to the Alcethmeret at two in the morning when Varenechibel finally finishes everything else there is to deal with today.

In any case, it is too late now. The boy and Aro Danivaran are already in the slightly musty reception room. She is nervous, but she has that refined grace of a noblewoman long-accustomed to the court and does not embarrass herself. The boy, the first time Varenechibel is seeing him up close since he was born, is holding her hand, his small fingers curled too tightly over Aro Danivaran’s palm.

Small fingers. He is small all over. He would be seven-years-old now. Or was it eight? It is hard to keep track of his children’s ages as they grow; each year these days seems to slip by quicker than the last. And Varenechibel sometimes forgets that he even has another son; it is an easy thing to do with the boy growing up outside the capital. When he does remember, he almost wishes he could forget permanently. But there is no forgetting now, not with the boy standing in front of him.

Varenechibel mentally counts back the years. Eight. It is definitely eight.

The boy is small for eight. Perhaps he is tall enough, but entirely too skinny, especially for a half-goblin. Was Chenelo too simple-minded to make sure her son got fed?

He is in black from head to toe, of course. Court mourning prescribes it. Besides, he has the advantage of his mother’s goblin-hair — a black mass of curls that someone had tried and failed to contain in a knot. The result is untidy, unacceptable for an archduke. But what does it matter? Black hair, black clothes, slate-grey skin. The reception room is decorated in soft yellow tones. The boy is like a blot of black ink someone spilled on a roll of vellum. Unwanted, unnecessary, unpleasant to look at.

His bow is acceptable at least, though as Aro Danivaran encourages him to straighten back up, his eyes remain lowered. Varenechibel gets the sense the boy is lost in his robes — white with ribbons of black wound across the white embroidery.

“Has the boy been causing you trouble, osmerrem?” Varenechibel asks.

“No, serenity.” She looks down at the boy with something approaching fondness. The boy, in turn, bites into his lip and clings tighter to her. “His grace has been no trouble at all. He has—“

“No, we wouldn’t expect so. His mother never dared to do anything other than what she was told either.” Varenechibel snorts, though there was no amusement in it. “At first glance, we thought our eyes were playing tricks on us, but no, it is plain. The damned whelp looks just like his mother.”

Aro Danivaran has court-manners enough not to react, but the boy drops his head lower and his shoulders curl. Varenechibel suspects he is about to burst into tears. That would be entirely predictable. That would prove Varenechibel’s point all the more.

Take all the shallow similarities aside — there are plenty of dark-haired, grey-skinned half-goblins working at the Untheileneise court — the boy stands like his mother. That teary look is equally familiar. And the boy has as much to say as his mother ever had.

That had been the bitterest disappointment. Pazhiro had not been an exceptional beauty. In fact, objectively, she had been the plainest of Varenechibel’s four wives. But she had had wits and a divine sense of humour. Ten minutes in her company was enough to melt away the sourest of Varenechibel’s moods. Even now, a decade later, he desperately misses the trivial nonsense they would mutter to each other upon waking and the simple conversations they would have over dinner.

He wishes too that he could focus on those memories, but, as always, a different sort of memory roars thought his mind like a surging firestorm. He had been there for Nazhira, Ciris and Veredo’s births. But Ezhara had come too early. Varenechibel had been hunting. By the time he could make it back to court, all there was for him to do was hold the cold hand of the only woman he had ever loved and to wrap his fourth son in a funeral shroud.

Were it up to him, he would still be wearing mourning colours for Pazhiro and little Ezhera, who never even had a chance to draw breath, here and now. But, no, his chancellor and the Corazhas had coaxed him into boxing away his grief. Into believing that he would find a measure of relief if he remarried again.

And Varenechibel had wanted to believe them, had been hopeful up until he met his new bride. Chenelo — sixteen, too timid to utter more than three words to her future husband, too afraid to even look him in the eye. She would have well-suited to become one of Nemrian’s companions. But, although Varenechibel knew there and then that the marriage would be a disaster, it had been too late to undo the agreements. He was not ready to plunge the Ethuveraz into war with Barizhan.

He grimaces even now at the memory of that wedding night. Consummating the marriage felt more akin to defiling a child. She had cried by the end; he had been a hair’s breadth from tearing the curtains of his bed asunder in despair. There was no bringing Pazhiro back and every moment he looked at Chenelo, he was reminded of what he would never have again.

He would have sent the weeping girl back to Barizhan. But that could not be done — she was a dagger poised over the heart of Varenechibel’s empire. The Great Avar is always looking for reasons to be offended, always itching to pick a fight. He never hid his efforts to cultivate his close friendship with the barbarians of the Evressai Steppes. The goblins and the barbarians in an alliance. The Ethuveraz would be lost if an invasion comes simultaneously from two fronts.

Chenelo had been a trap and Varenechibel had been foolish enough to walk right into it. The boy was hardly better. Perhaps it had been better if he had died with his mother. It would have certainly been neater.

“Has he been showing signs of homesickness?” Varenechibel asks. It seems pointless to direct questions at the boy; he would only mumble as his mother had.

Aro Danivaran’s ears lift a little. “Perhaps not homesickness exactly, serenity. It seems to us he greatly misses his mother. Which is, of course, understandable.”

Understandable. Expected. Inevitable. He had sent Chenelo away as soon as he was able — a kindness for everyone involved. The sight of her and her child infuriated Varenechibel and Chenelo had been unhappy at court. The only people she befriended at court were a couple of priests. Hardly appropriate company for an empress. The quiet countryside suited Chenelo better. It was better for Varenechibel too; most days he could pretend that Chenelo did not and had never existed.

But he had left the boy wholly dependent on his mother. What now that his mother was gone? Varenechibel would have been content to ignore the boy’s existence until the boy reached his majority, but here they were.

Not the court. Varenechibel would have to see his face far too frequently if the boy remained at court. Besides, what benefit would that be to the boy? The fifth son, who would never measure up to any of his older half-brothers. The Great Avar’s line is rife with the witless and the mad.

It would have to be the countryside then. Back to Isvaroe? No, there is no one there to look after the boy. Foster him with Imel and Nemrian? Nemrian has three daughters of her own to raise; she would not forgive him for burdening her with her half-goblin half-brother.

But it has to be someone with Drazhada blood. As unfortunate as it is, Chenelo’s miserable whelp is Drazhada. He needs to remain with his kin. There has to be someone who would not refuse as unpalatable a task as this one.

He almost makes the boy Aro Danivaran’s problem for good, but the pitiful look she is giving the boy stays his hand. She would molly-coddle him and that is the last thing the boy needs. No. It has to be someone else. Someone with a firmer hand. 

Varenechibel taps his ring finger against the padded arm of his throne-like armchair. Setheris Nelar is rotting in prison right now. Although he is formally of another house, he does have Drazhada blood. He is a barrister too; he should be able to drum some basic knowledge into the boy’s head. And he is in no position to refuse his new charge.

“We thank you for your diligence in caring for our son,” Varenechibel says. He had not intended it, but the word “son” comes out of his mouth dripping in sarcasm. “Please do so for one day more. Take him to the secondary landing dock midday tomorrow. Osmer Nelar, his new guardian, will take the responsibility for him from there.”

“Yes, serenity,” Aro Danivaran replies. Her tone is carefully neutral.

Varenechibel’s secretary, who had been silent until now, clears his throat. “Is Osmer Nelar to be relegated to Isvaroe then?”

“No. That estate is not fitting for the extent of his trespass against us. Look into it and find another, less sizable property. And far from Cetho,” Varenechibel replies. Preferably, far enough that he would never have to think about Chenelo and Chenelo’s son again.

The boy understands that Aro Danivaran’s curtsy is his cue to bow once more. This bow is no less precise than the first — someone drilled the basics into him at least. When the boy straightens up again, however, he also lifts his chin and Varenechibel founds himself peering at the cold grey of the boy’s eyes.

Grey. That catches him off guard. The boy’s eyes must have changed colour since infancy. Varenechibel distinctly remembers that the boy had been born with sky blue eyes; he had thought it strange because neither he nor Chenelo had such eyes. The court doctor explained that it was not heard of for infants’ eyes to change colour, particularly among goblins.

Even more surprising than the colour, however, is that rather than the despondent watering look Varenechibel had been expecting, he sees barely contained fury.

_So not quite the docile mouse his mother was. Perhaps the boy inherited something of the Great Avar's mettle._

But Varenechibel does not have time for meaningless speculation; he is due at the Antheilean soon and the funeral after that. He shrugs off the boy’s ill-tempered look — he will not be intimidated by an eight-year-old — and flicks his hand in dismissal.

“What’s the next item on our agenda?” he demands before the boy and Aro Danivaran are even out the door.


End file.
